Vegas Baby! - Part Two

Friday was an awesome day! We stayed up pretty late the night before so Eric and I slept most of the morning. We started the day out the way I wish I could start everyday. With a mudslide from Fat Tuesday. One of the coolest parts of the trip was the discovery that we had a Fat Tuesday in the shops attached to our hotel. Score! Drinks in hand, we wandered around the Miracle Mile browsing in windows and trying to find a good place to have some lunch. It was hard to get the 6 of us to agree on something. We also had to finish our drinks before we could go into any of the restaurants, so we walked around for a while. We first decided on Blondie's (a Sports Bar and Grill). After we got sat down and started looking over the menu we decided this was not what we were looking for. I think what turned me off was that they almost sat at us at a table that had the Broncos and Raiders logos on it. That's a sure way to make me lose my appetite. Actually that's impossible, who am I kidding? We instead decided to try Cheeseburger Las Vegas, right across the corridor. It turns out, that might not have been the best idea. Most of us had burgers, we shared a few baskets of fries, and everyone had another drink. Cheeseburger consists of mainly Hawaiian style burgers. Most of their locations are in Hawaii. In my opinion, definitely not the best burger I ever had. Jiffy Burger would put these burgers to shame. After lunch we headed north on the strip. We made a stop at O'Shay's for a little gambling and a drink. (We were in Vegas after all.) O'Shay's was not what we were looking for so we went further north and stopped at Carnival Court. Carnival Court was a blast. The area is outside and completely covered by a tent of some sort. There is a huge circle bar in the middle with a few small bars on the sides. Towards the front there is a stage that had a band performing. We found a table and hung out watching the band and the talented bartenders for a few hours. The band got the crowd involved and did some skits. A older man from the crowd danced almost the entire time we were there. I wish I could describe his dancing. It was too funny. One of the bartenders who works there is ranked #1 in the U. S. This guy is talented. The best part was when for various occasions, "Free Shots!," was hollered. All you were to do was tip the bartender who was standing on the bar and pouring the shot from the bottle directly into your mouth. One of the times Eric went up, he "accidentally" gave the bartender a $10 bill. The guy put a bib on Eric and poured for what seemed like minutes. Eric actually had to tell him that he had enough before the guy stopped. It was awesome. At one point the band started a train collecting tips throughout the crowd. One of the people in the train line had Brian join them. Eventually even though we were still having a great time we decided we were ready to move on. The next stop was Casino Royale. The guys had hopes to find some cheap Craps tables, but didn't have much luck. So we loaded up on drinks since they offered $1 frozen margarita and $1 Michelobs. We made our way up to Wynn and walked inside since Eric and I hadn't seen the inside yet. After Wynn we decided to go across the street for a quick shopping spree in what I think is called, Fashion Show. I didn't end up buying anything so it wasn't much of a spree for me. By this time we were ready to head back to the hotel to freshen up and see about dinner. Everyone changed into nice clothes and we ate dinner in the Casino at P. F. Chang's Chinese Bistro. We had a nice semi-circle booth to ourselves. We ordered tons of delicious food. Following dinner everyone walked across the street to watch the fountains at the Bellagio. After a show or two, Brian and Lynnae called it a night and went back to their room. Eric, Alex, Tasha, and myself decided it would be a good idea to walk a little south to get some more beers from the store we had bought them from the night before. Our purchase consisted of 12 Bud Light Limes and 4 Kahlua Mudslides. We decided to go to our room this time. We filled the sink with ice and put some of our drinks in to keep them nice and cool. Since our room had 2 queen beds each couple took a bed and we decided to watch a little TV while we relaxed a bit. The problem was, we got too relaxed. Everyone fell asleep within probably 5 minutes. We didn't end up opening a single drink. After I don't know how long, I woke up to find Alex and Tasha went back to their room to go to bed. Eric and I turned off the lights and crashed until morning.

More to come...

Vegas Baby! - Part One

Eric and I just got back from an awesome trip to Vegas last weekend. We arrived in Vegas on Thursday night and came home on Monday. The reason for the trip was to help Tasha celebrate her 21st birthday. Eric and I met the rest of our group; Alex, Tasha, Brian, and Lynnae in Vegas. We flew out from KC, while everyone else left from Denver.

Eric and I were afraid we were going to miss our flight. We decided to run a few errands Thursday afternoon before we left. While we were out, we ran into a little car trouble. I was waiting in the car for Eric, and instead of turning it on I just turned the key enough for the radio and air to come on. When Eric came back out we discovered I killed the battery. Oops! We made a desperate call to our friend Mike, who was stuck in traffic, to come give us a jump start. He saved us, but we were still incredibly short on time. We hadn't even packed or taken the dogs to the kennel. We had planned on leaving the house close to the time that we finally made it back to the house. While I packed our bags, Eric dropped the kids off at the kennel. We made it to the airport right at 30 minutes before our flight was to leave. Eric dropped me at the terminal with the bags so we could get checked in. In order for him not to get left behind he had to park in what he calls "Rock Star Parking." Instead of paying $5.50 a day in economy, we paid I think $18.00 a day. The good news is after all of that we were able to make our flight.

We arrived in Vegas later than expected because KC was experiencing some nasty storms and we had to fly way north to avoid the storm. We hopped on a shuttle bus after we retrieved our bags and found our way to our hotel. This trip we stayed at Planet Hollywood. We were both pleased with the hotel. It was a great location, nice room, and had an excellent view. All the rooms have a different movie theme. Ours was Rainman. Planet Hollywood sits across the street from the Bellagio, so we were able to watch the fountains from our room several times. Planet Hollywood is directly beside Paris, so we also had a great view of the Eiffel Tower as well.

We didn't do much the first night. We didn't meet up with Brian and Lynnae until the next day because we took so long to get there, they ended up falling asleep. After settling in and getting cleaned up, Eric, Alex, Tasha, and myself made our way to MGM so I could get a mudslide from Fat Tuesday. Much to my dismay, they were closed. Eric and I were starving so we jotted across the street to NY, NY for a slice. NY, NY has an excellent pizza place in the casino that we eat at every trip to Vegas. After that we headed back towards the hotel but made a pit-stop on the way. We have found that beer is much cheaper if it is purchased at a convenience store instead of the bars/casinos. We picked up a six-pack of Bud Light Lime and strolled back to the hotel. We decided to hang out in the younger Martin's room to lay back and visit. After we polished off the beer everyone was pretty sleepy since it was around 3:00am Vegas time. Eric and I headed down the hall to our room and crashed for the evening.

To be continued...

My New Toy

So, I got my new toy ordered today. It's an Epiphone Les Paul - Silverburst. It's gorgeous, and should pair nicely with my new Crate amp.

--Eric

Da' Kids

The kids have a new favorite place, the dog park! It's snowing today, so we weren't able to go, but we have went the two previous weekends. Heritage Park is only about 5-10 minutes from the house. It has a off-leash dog park. The kids love it. Bailey really gets to stretch her legs and run. Her favorite part is the pond where she can go for a swim. She makes friends with everyone. Gizmo thinks he's at the farm, so he's in heaven. He likes to hide in the muddy, tree covered area. Zeke is starting to enjoy the dog park too. The first time he stayed right beside me, but last weekend he started to run around and explore.

Becca's 29th Birthday

On January, 4th, I turned 29 (just 29, not 29 and holding). Eric made it a wonderful birthday for me. When I arrived home from work, I smelled a freshly baked birthday cake. He gave me my gift of a beautiful Movado watch. It is very fancy, so I plan to save it for special occasions. Eric surprised me with plans he had made for the evening. Even though I was just starting to get over Bronchitis, and he had just got it, he took me out to a wonderful dinner. We got dressed up a little, and drove downtown to Skies. Skies is a restaurant located on the top floor of Hyatt-Regency. The atmosphere is amazing. The dining room is circled around the top of the building. The floor of the dining room actually turns a full 360 degrees in about a hour. We were able to see the whole city while we ate. We enjoyed good food, wine, and conversation (although with an occasional cough). After dinner we walked over to Crown Center to watch the fountains and people ice skate. We thought about skating, but we decided against it since neither of us felt that well. Eric had made plans for us to stay downtown, but our babysitter fell through, so he had to cancel our hotel reservation. It was one of my favorite birthdays, if not the favorite.

Updates coming!

I've started working on an update for Ireland, but because work has been pretty crazy this week and I haven't felt like doing much when I get home at night, I haven't completed it. I'm hoping to have it finished sometime within the next day or two.

Ouch!!

Last Saturday we had a little excitement. After I arrived home from work I started to clean the house up because we had plans to have some friends come over for dinner. While cleaning the main bathroom, I decide I was tired of the glass bowl with potpourri on the counter. I carefully washed it, because I knew it was very fragile. I first was going to let it air-dry, but grew impatient. I got a towel out to dry it and while holding the thin glass bowl in my left had...it shattered! Luckily I was right by the sink so I immediately put my hand under cold running water to control the blood. I had a few choice four-letter words to scream out. Eric hollered from the office to see if I was fine. Part of my response was, "I may need stiches." I thought I was joking. Eric doctored me up with some butterfly tape. He insisted I go to the doctor, so we headed to urgent care. After paying our co-pay and getting checked in, a nurse came out to take a quick look. She looked at my thumb and said we should go to the ER. She was afraid I might have damaged a tendon. So back to the counter for a refund for our co-pay. After that, Eric drove me to Olathe Med to the ER. After much waiting I got checked in to my first room and received my tetnus shot. We waited more after that and got bumped to a different room. Eventually my doctor came in and took care of my hand. I ended up with seven stiches under my thumb. He glued the big gash on the top of my middle finger because the shots they would give to numb my finger were going to be pretty painful. I also had several small cuts on my other fingers and on my wrist. The whole ordeal lasted about four hours. We had to cancel our plans with our friends.

My hand is looking much better. I should be able to get my stiches out in a few more days. I took the picture of my hand yesterday (one week after the injury). The other picture is of a bowl much like the one that wrecked my hand.